to be presented in my name—for I had retained
some few shares in the company—and if
successful, an accountant, a friend of Mr. Scott, my
solicitor, was, by certain means, to be named
official liquidator. This done, the newly named
official liquidator was to nominate the same legal
gentleman solicitor for the winding-up, and from
that time forward all the costs, and other profits,
which would in any way be derived from the
said winding-up, were to be divided amongst the
three of us, share and share alike. If the petition
failed, and the Vice-Chancellor did not see
cause to order the company to be wound up,
I was to be held harmless; my friend Mr. Scott
giving me an undertaking that he would not
look to me for the expenses in the event of
the petition not being granted.

Every one knows that a mere whisper against
the credit of a bank is sufficient to injure it
very greatly. When we three—for I agreed to
join the unholy compact—first arranged to
petition the court to wind up the bank, there
was really no cause why such should be done.
But no sooner was it known that such a document
was being prepared, than the affair got
talked about in the City, and, once talked about,
the credit of the bank was virtually gone. This
was not only caused by people thinking no one
would dream of presenting such a petition
without a good reason, but also by there
being other shareholders amongst us who were
quite as greedy of gain as I was. When
these heard that a petition was about to be
presented by me for the winding-up of the
bank, there were half a dozen or more of these
gentlemen who thought that they had quite as
much right as me to any possible profits in the
legal fight. Moreover, each of them had his
solicitor, and each solicitor had his accountant,
all most anxious to win a prize which was so
well worth having. We calculated that what with
litigation of one sort and another, costs of meetings,
summonses, writs issued against shareholders
that would not pay up, there would have
been a matter of three thousand pounds clear
profit to be divided between the accountant, the
solicitor, and myself.

If this unfortunate establishment had only
been given fair play, it would have got on quite
as well as seven banks out of ten do for the first
year or two after they are set on foot. But the
very fact of there being first one petition, and
then four or five more presented to wind it up,
made people believe that there was something
radically wrong about it. The shares that had
been quoted a fraction above par, soon went down
to fifty per cent discount. On each of our shares
there was at this time five pounds paid up, and
these could now be purchased in the market
for two pounds ten. Thus the petitions being
presented, helped to bring down the value of the
shares, and the fall of the latter was of great
service to us in obtaining a hearing for our petitions
—the one telling upon and influencing the
other. And yet the management of the bank
had not been bad. The directors were honourable
men, and were all more or less worth
money. The list of shareholders was good, and
fully equal to pay any calls that could have been
made upon them. But what cannot be effected
by a panic and by credit run down? In our
case, then, it had such an effect that, although
the bank was, in sober truth, as sound as ever,
not a single shareholder could be found bold
enough to resist the application for winding-up;
even the directors, having been bitten with the
prevalent fear, became as anxious as any one
else to wash their hands of the whole affair.
Thus the position of the concern was, that by a
sort of tacit consent, the great body of shareholders
looked on in silence, whilst six or seven
of us were striving to have such a sentence
passed upon the company as would ruin it but
enrich us.

I have mentioned that there were six or seven
of us—each with his solicitor and accountant,
ready to be slipped at the enemy—each trying
to have the winding-up order granted. A day
was named by the Vice-Chancellor, and we competitors
—it was very like a horse-race—went
before that functionary to prove, first, that the
bank ought to be wound up, and, secondly, to
see which of us would gain the prize of having
the winding-up in his own hands. To hear us
all on the one day was impossible, and therefore
the Vice-Chancellor had to name a second day
for another hearing. At the end of the first
day it was very evident that his Honour had
decided that the concern should be wound up,
and also that my party was the favourite
for obtaining the desired prize. So much so
was this latter the case, that before leaving the
court on that day, I had offers from no less than
three of my enemies to amalgamate their forces
with mine, on condition that they should receive
an equal share of the profits. To my great surprise,
I found that the moving spirit of one of
these parties was no less a person than Mr.
Edwin Smart, the secretary of the company,
who, seeing that there was a panic abroad respecting
the bank, determined that if there was
anything to be had out of the spoil, he might as
well have his share of what was going. With this
view he selected a shareholder—an individual
who owned but five shares—and, putting him
forward as the petitioner, was himself provided
with solicitor and accountant, to assist him in
opening and eating the oyster. He was a wise
man in his generation, Mr. Edwin Smart, and
the notion of the secretary of a bank being one
of the most eager—although behind the scenes
—to wind up the concern, certainly surprised
me not a little. Since then, however, I have
ceased to be astonished at anything done in
London, either for the promoting or the destruction
of joint-stock companies.

As a matter of policy, I thought it wise to
ask Mr. Edwin Smart to join us. Being secretary
of the bank, he had all the board minutes, letters,
and other records under his charge, and might be
of great use to us if we wanted to prove anything
concerning the establishment. I therefore, after
consulting with my two friends, the solicitor
and accountant, told Mr. Smart that he might